If you want to be creative, you have to be unafraid. Unafraid of losing. Unafraid of getting hurt. Unafraid of being wrong or looking like a fool. When the Wright brothers took their first leap off of a small cliff to prove that they knew how to really fly, do you think they were afraid? Of course they were afraid. But they weren’t afraid of falling to their death ‒ per say ‒ rather, they were afraid of not risking everything to succeed.

If you want to be creative you have to face your fears once in a while. You have to understand that you might lose, and that’s okay. Be different. Be bold. Take a risk. Make a leap.

Original “man in a hot air balloon” illustration used in this article was created by Kevin Cornell for A List Apart.